Boondock Saints
Extremely flawed yet still fascinating, dancing on the line of genius without quite crossing it, Troy Duffy’s 1999 cult classic has a backstory nearly as mesmerizing as its plot: Having its release delayed due to the Columbine massacre, the film was then given a VERY limited release (in only 5 cities!) and expected to be forgotten, until its DVD release and an amazing grass roots phenomenon resulted in a cult following rivaled only (and possibly surpassing) Rocky Horror itself. Telling the story of two Irish brothers in Boston (Sean Patrick Flannery and Norman Reedus) who experience an epiphany of sorts in a police jail cell, and then dedicate their lives to hunting down and killing all the “bad people” in the world, some may say that their vigilante actions make them no better than their targets, but if you buy into the theory that in this fictional world they truly have been “touched by God”, then all reservations pretty much go out the window on that front, save for an unforgivable and unnecessary bit involving the death of an innocent cat during a heavy night of drinking. Aiding them in their mission is Rocco (David Della Rocco, a real life best friend of Duffy’s), an Italian delivery boy for the mob who joins them after being betrayed by his own people, and it is this core concept that carries the film through its best scenes, as the bond these three share seems real and not contrived, declaring war on the underworld and striking fear in the hearts of the evil mob bosses (plus the joke that Rocco, who is known as the “Funnyman”, tells at one point early on is one for the books). The film gets off track with the introduction of Willem Dafoe as the gay FBI agent who gets on their trail but becomes convinced that what they are doing is not necessarily a bad thing. Dafoe is funny and hip during the first half of the film, delighting in pointing out the incompetence of the Boston PD that he has to work with, but in the second half, when the script requires him to have some sort of nervous breakdown due to his conflicted feelings, Dafoe takes it WAY over the top, leading to a poorly acted scene in a confessional (overheard by the Saints) where he drunkenly reconciles his feelings about what they are doing and vows to “turn to their side” and help them any way he can, leading to a ridiculous sequence of Dafoe in drag seducing then killing the Mafia wiseguys. This is self indulgence at its worst, and distracts from the raw, core kinetic energy of the piece which, when it’s on, is as exciting and visceral as any action movie of the past ten years. This is best embodied by Il Duce (legendary madman comic Billy Connolly), a much-feared hit man brought out of prison to deal with the Saints but liable to kill everyone in his path (including those who hired him). That Connolly comes into the film out of left field and forms a natural (but predictable) bond with the Saints in many ways adds to the intensity of the finale, where all the emotions that have been building the whole film finally get expressed (leading to the sequel). Duffy also does a bit of offbeat casting in the supporting roles as well, including Gerald Parkes (best known as the lovable old codger whose workshop provided the gateway to Fraggle Rock) as a crusty old bartender suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome (“Fuck!” “Ass!”), to porn legend Ron Jeremy as a particularly slimy mobster to 24’s Carlo Rota as the big boss of the Italian mafia. Overall, the purest example of a cult film phenomenon this decade, if not as awesome as the hype would have you believe…
7/10